There’s a tricky sleight of hand going on during the first hour of “Glass Onion,” in particular. The expectation is that the obnoxious Miles will be killed for real, but there are actual clues and fake clues that have all been carefully orchestrated. In a hilarious twist on the detective cracking the case, Benoit Blanc’s monologue early on completely ruins the game that Miles has planned. When Miles panics after Duke (Dave Bautista) is put in mortal danger, his incompetence and guilt are right there for everyone to see, if they look closely.
Rian Johnson told The Filmcast that it was important to make sure not to have any easy cheats that could be uncovered after a second watch. “In a way, I feel like the movie’s almost designed more to be watched a second time than a first time,” he said. “And we play, we play really, really fair in that first half, that’s the other thing. It was a little scary, actually.” There’s a list of blunders you can plainly see, he revealed:
“I mean not just the glass switching, but there’s so much stuff in there in terms of … when Miles steals Duke’s gun, it’s … he just does it. Birdie [Kate Hudson] is kind of in front of him but you can totally see him pull it out and just stick it in the back of his pants. When they’re talking about where’s Duke’s phone, on the shot where he’s saying ‘It was just here, I don’t see it,’ Miles is like hopping up the couch and turning and the black phone is just sticking out of his back pocket.”
All of these clearly visible details are used just to point out that Miles genuinely has no clue what he’s doing.